13th International LS-DYNA Users Conference

Session: Fluid Structure Interaction

Interaction Methods for the SPH Parts

(Multiphase Flows, Solid Bodies) in LS-DYNA
Jingxiao Xu, Jason Wang
Livermore Software Technology Corporation

Abstract
The interesting and complex behaviour of fluids emerges mainly from interaction processes.
Smooth particles hydrodynamics is a meshfree, Lagrangian particle method and a simple, yet
flexible method for modeling fluid flows and solid bodies in a robust way. It has been applied
extensively to the multiphase flows, heat conduction, high explosive problems and so on. In this
paper, different interaction methods available in the LS-DYNA for SPH parts which have wide
range of density and material properties are studied and compared. Node to node contacts fit
well for the interaction between two SPH parts with high density ratio, the standard SPH
interpolation method has better accuracy around the interfaces when two SPH parts have
similar density and material properties. Different interaction approaches can be combined
together in one model to reach the best results. Also the interactions between Lagrangian
elements with SPH particles are discussed. Some examples are presented to show how to use
different approaches with different combination of LS-DYNA keywords.

Introduction
SPH is a Lagrangian method for solving partial differential equations. Essentially, the domain is
discretized by approximating it by a series of roughly equi-spaced particles. They move and
change their properties (such as temperature) in accordance with a set of ordinary differential
equations derived from the original governing PDEs. SPH was first applied by Lucy (1977) to
astrophysical problems, and was extended by Gingold (1982). Cloutman (1991) used SPH to
model hypervelocity impacts. Libersky and Petschk have shown that SPH can be used to model
materials with strength. In recent years it has been developed as a method for incompressible
isothermal enclosed flows by Monaghan (1994).
As a Lagrangian method, the interaction between SPH particles and FEM elements can be easily
handled by a normal node to surface contact in LS-DYNA. Because of its ability to handle large
distortions by avoiding the need for intensive FEM remeshing, its reasonable precision and
stability compared with classical methods FEM, SPH is a competitive approach compared to
finite elements (FE) and is increasingly being used in some fast-transient dynamics problems.
Several authors have proposed to couple FE and SPH which seems a reasonable approach in
order to benefit from the advantages of both formulations. In LS-DYNA, hybrid elements that
enable coupling effects between SPH particles and FEM solid are implemented. In this method,
hybrid elements are configured to facilitate coupling effect of solid element and smoothed
particle hydrodynamics (SPH). This method can be used to adaptively transform a Lagrangian
solid Part or Part Set to SPH particles. Also hybrid elements are defined in a computer aided
engineering (CAE) grid model as a buffer or interface between the SPH particles and FEM solids

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13th International LS-DYNA Users Conference

Session: Fluid Structure Interaction

When simulating fluids, it is important to capture interaction effects accurately in order to

reproduce real world behavior. Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics has shown to be a simple, yet
flexible method to cope with many fluid simulation problems in a robust way. Unfortunately, the
results obtained when using SPH to simulate miscible fluids are severely affected, especially if
density ratios become large. In SPH, particles have a spatial distance covered by smooth length
over which their properties are smoothed by a kernel function. Problems arise when rest densities
and masses of neighboring particles vary within the smoothing length, as in such cases the
smoothed quantities of a particle show falsified values. The undesirable effects reach from
unphysical density and pressure variations to spurious and unnatural interface tensions, as well as
severe numerical instabilities. A node to node penalty based contact was introduced to avoid
those interface effects in LS-DYNA.
We have couples of keyword options available in LS-DYNA for the interactions between SPH
parts also the interactions between SPH part and Solid part: Standard SPH interpolation method
(normal
way);
Node
to
node
penalty
based
contact
through
keyword
*DEFINE_SPH_TO_SPH_COUPLING; Combination of both method through keyword
*SECTION_SPH_INTERACTION; Node to surface contact between SPH part and Solid part;
Coupling
between
SPH
parts
and
solid
parts
through
keyword
*DEFINE_ADAPTIVE_SOLID_TO_SPH; Coupling between SPH particles with ALE elements
through keyword *ALE_COUPLING_NODAL_PENALTY. Different interaction approaches
can be combined together in one model to reach the best results. Some examples are
demonstrated to show how to use different approaches with different combination of LS-DYNA
keywords.

Standard SPH formulation

Fundamentals of the SPH method
Particles methods are based on quadrature formulas on moving particles ( xi (t ), wi (t ))i P , P is
the set of the particles. xi (t ) is the location of particle i and wi (t ) is the weight of the particle i.
The quadrature formulation for a function can be written as:

f ( x)dx w (t ) f ( x

jP

(t ))

(1)

The quadrature formulation (1) together with the definition of smoothing kernel leads to the
definition of the particle approximation of a function. The interpolated value of a function:
u ( X ) at position X
using the SPH method is:

h (u ( xi )) w j (t )u ( x j )W ( xi x j , h)

(2)

Where the sum is over all particles inside and within a radius 2h , W is a spline based
interpolation kernel of radius 2h. It mimics the shape of a delta function but without the infinite
tails. It is a C 2 function. The kernel function is defined as following:

1 x xj
W ( xi x j , h) i

h h ( x, y )
1-2

(3)

13th International LS-DYNA Users Conference

Session: Fluid Structure Interaction

W ( xi x j , h) when h 0 , is Dirac function, h is a function of xi and x j and is

the so-called smoothing length of the kernel.
And the cubic B-spline function is defined:

3 2 3 3

d d
1

2
4
1
(d ) C (2 d )3
4
0

The gradient of the function u ( X )

smoothing length:

when 0 d 1
when 1 d 2

(4)

elsewhere

is given by applying the operator of derivation on the

h (u ( xi ) w j u ( x j )W ( xi x j , h)
j

(5)

Evaluating an interpolated product of two functions is given by the product of their interpolated
values.

Fig 1. Support size of 2d kennel function

Continuity equation and Momentum equation
The particle approximation of continuity equation is defined as:

m
d i
i j v i v j Wij '
dt
j j

(6)

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Session: Fluid Structure Interaction

It is Galilean invariant due to that the positions and velocities appear only as differences, and has
good numerical conservation properties. v i is the velocity component at particle i.
The discretized form of the SPH momentum equation is developed as:

m
dvi
j ( i
j )Wij ,
dt
j i j

(7)

The above formulation ensures that stress is automatically continuous across material interfaces.
Different types of SPH momentum equations can be achieved through applying the identity
equations into the normal SPH momentum equation. Symmetric formulation of SPH momentum
equation can reduce the errors arising from particle inconsistency problem.
From equation (7), the following particle body forces were derived:

Fi pressure m j

pi p j

Fi vis cos ity m j

vi v j

2 j
2 j

W ( rij , h)

2W (rij , h)

(8)

Where rij xi x j , is the viscosity coefficient of the fluid. The pressure pi are computed via
the constitutive equation:

pi k ( i 0 )

(9)

where k is the stiffness of the fluid and 0 is its initial density.

Finally, for the acceleration of a particle i, we have:

a i 1 / i ( Fi pressure Fi vis cos ity Fi external )

(10)

Where Fi external are external forces such as body forces or forces due to contacts.
Multiple Fluids and Solid bodies

The above equations (1)--(10) were designed to handle single phase fluid and can be easily
extended in order to handle multiple fluids and Solid bodies with different rest density. Cares
must be taken to avoid the interface instability due to the large density ratio across the interfaces.
Interaction through standard SPH interpolation

As shown in Fig 2, the standard way to handle the interactions between different SPH parts is
through the SPH interpolation functions (i.e treated as one part for multiple SPH fluids) and no
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Session: Fluid Structure Interaction

contact treatments are needed on the interfaces of the different SPH parts. In SPH, particles have
a spatial distance (smoothing length) over which their properties are smoothed by a kernel
function (such as density, pressure). Smoothed quantities of a particles show falsified values
when densities and masses of neighboring particles vary largely within the smoothing length. As
shown in Muller et al (2005), miscible fluids with a density ratio larger than 10 cannot be
realistically simulated if the standard SPH density summation is used. The reason is that in SPH,
the macroscopic flow is mainly governed by the density computation. Over or underestimating
the density leads to erroneous pressure values, which might result in unnatural acceleration
caused by erroneously introduce pressure ratio (Ihmsen et al 2011). Also lead to a spurious
interface tension and a large gap between the fluids. The erroneous quantities lead to undesirable
effects, reaching from unphysical density and pressure variations to spurious and unnatural
interface tensions, and even to severe numerical instabilities
Another issue with the interaction through standard SPH interpolation is that different SPH fluid
parts may stick together after the interaction due to the SPH function interpolations. To activate
this option, CONT parameter in *CONTROL_SPH has to be set as 0, and no contacts are
allowed between those SPH parts.

PartI

2
PartII
Fig 2. Interaction through SPH interpolation (treated as one part and no contact is needed)

Interaction through node to node contacts

A penalty based node to node contact model is introduced on the interfaces of the different SPH
parts. As shown in Fig 3, all the SPH interpolations (density, pressure and so on) are carried out
inside the local domains of each SPH part. No spurious interface tension or interfaces instability
happened in this model. The contact forces on the interfaces will be applied to the external forces
as in equation (10).

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Fig 3. Interaction through node to node contacts

In this system, the repulsive contact force acting on particle due to contact
proportional to the displacement or overlap between particles :

, is directly

(11)
is the linear-spring constant or stiffness. If the contact is modeled
where d 2h and
using only this linear-spring, no energy will be consumed and the contact will be ferfectly
elastic. In reality, some kinetic energy is dissipated in plastic deformation, and/or converted to
heat or sound energy. To account for those energy losses, a contact damping force based on a
dashpot model is also included:
(12)
The contact damping force is proportional to the relative velocity of the contacting particles,
where the constant of proportionality

is known as the damping coefficient,

v v1 v2

A *DEFINE_SPH_TO_SPH_COUPLING keyword is needed between any two SPH parts for

the contact interaction, also parameter CONT in *CONTROL_SPH need to be set as 1 to
deactivate the interaction through standard interpolation.
Interaction through both normal interpolation method and node to node contact method in
one model
Combine the CONT=1 option in *CONTROL_SPH keyword with keyword
*SECTION_SPH_INTERACTION to support the partial interactions between SPH parts through
normal interpolation option and partial interaction between SPH parts through node to node
contacts
in
one
model.
All
the
SPH
parts
that
are
defined
with
*SECTION_SPH_INTERACTION keyword will integrate with each other through normal
interpolation method automatically, and node to node contacts are needed for the interactions
between SPH parts defined with *SECTION_SPH_INTERACTION keyword and other SPH
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13th International LS-DYNA Users Conference

Session: Fluid Structure Interaction

parts, also for the interactions between any other SPH parts that not defined through
*SECTION_SPH_INTERACTION keyword.
Normally, interaction through the standard interpolation method produces more consistent results
across the interface when SPH parts interacted have similar densities and material properties,
however the smoothed quantities of a particles show falsified values when densities and masses
of neighbouring particles vary largely within the smoothing length. The erroneous quantities lead
to undesirable effects, reaching from unphysical density and pressure variations to spurious and
unnatural interface tensions, and even to severe numerical instabilities. Interaction through node
to node contact allow the users to select the desired amount of contact force between two SPH
parts by choosing the desired penalty scale factors according to the simulation problem at hand
and it help to avoid the instabilities due to large density ratios at the interfaces. Also for any two
SPH parts with total Lagrangian formulation definition, only node to node contact can be used as
interaction method, since the neighbouring lists are only updated at beginning for SPH particles
with total Lagrangian formulation definition. With *SECTION_SPH_INTERACTON keyword,
users can take advantage of both interaction methods in one model based on the SPH parts
properties as shown in Fig 4.

Fig 4. Interaction through both standard interpolation methods and contact methods
SPH coupling with Solid elements

For the normal interaction between SPH particles and FEA elements (Solids and Shells), node to
surface contacts in LS-DYNA can be used, since both methods are based on the Lagrangian
description. When modelling SPH particles as fluids flow and FEA elements as structure in the
models, the Fluid Structure Interaction problems can be easily handled by the node to surface
contact.
Keyword *DEFINE_ADAPTIVE_SOLID_TO_SPH is used to adaptively transform a
Lagrangian solid Part or Part Set to SPH particles, when the Lagrangian solid elements
comprising those parts fail (Shown in Fig 5). One or more SPH particles (elements) will be
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Session: Fluid Structure Interaction

13th International LS-DYNA Users Conference

generated for each failed element. The SPH particles replacing the failed element inherit all of
the properties of the failed solid element, e.g. mass, kinematic variables, and constitutive
properties.

Fig 5. Transform Solid elements into SPH particles

With ICPL=0, this keyword is used for debris simulation, no coupling happens between newly
generated SPH particles and solid elements, user need to define node to surface contact for the
interaction between those two parts. When ICPL=1 and IOPT=1, the newly generated SPH
particles are bonded with solid elements as one part through the coupling (Hybrid elements).
With ICPL=1 and IOPT=0, this keyword is used as Hybrid Element coupling SPH with Solid (as
shown in Fig 6).

Hybrid elements

SPH Particles

Solid elements

Fig 6. Example of Hybrid elements a stransit layers between SPH particles and Solid elements

In this hybrid elements method, we have the SPH formulation which can endure quite large
deformation and at the same time we have the Solid meshes which clearly describe the material
interfaces. Solid elements constrain SPH nodal locations. SPH elements provide penalty force
against solid nodal motions. Hybrid elements are used as transit layers between SPH elements
and Solid elements, for a portion of grid model comprises SPH particles because the likelihood
of enduring large deformation, while the rest of the model comprises FEM solid elements, hybrid
elements are placed between the solids and the particles, each hybrid element comprises two
layers: solid layer and particle layer.
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13th International LS-DYNA Users Conference

Session: Fluid Structure Interaction

SPH coupling with ALE, DEM methods

Keyword *ALE_COUPLING_NODAL_PENALTY provides a penalty base contact interaction

between SPH particles and ALE materials (master segments). Also keyword
*DEFINE_SPH_DE_COUPLING defines a penalty based contact between SPH particles and
DEM particles. This option uses the node to node contacts to couple SPH solver with discrete
element sphere (DES) solver.

Examples
Water, air impacting with rigid ring
3D tank with fluids which has the dimension of 1.0X0.8X0.01 (Fig. 7) was calculated to validate
the node to node contact in LS-DYNA for multiple SPH parts with high density ratio across the
interfaces. The fluids in the tank were water and air with air on the top, the density ratio between
those two fluids is more than 1000. Both water and air were model with SPH particles. A rigid
ring modeled with cylinder shell impacted the fluids in the tank with the speed of 50 in Y
direction. The results from the SPH particles were compared with the results from the ALE
method with the same dimension and parameters (see Fig.9 and Fig.10).

In the model, automatic_ node_ to_surface contacts were used for the interaction between air,
water particles and rigid shells, a node to node contact was used for the interaction between air
particles and water particles. The contact between two SPH particles from different parts was
detected when the distance of two particles is less than SRAD*(sum of smooth lengths from two
particles)/2.0. SRAD is parameter ranged from 0 to 1.0 and is used to adjust the detecting criteria
due to initial penetration.
The standard interaction through SPH interpolation will not work for this case. A proper penalty
scale factor has to be used for better performance. As show in Fig. 8, a double value of penalty
scale factor will cause more noises around the interface of the two SPH fluids. The final
deformed shape of water was comparable with the results from ALE elements (Fig. 9). The
velocity historys for the rigid ring from both SPH model and ALE model were plotted and
compared in Fig. 10, two results were close.

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Session: Fluid Structure Interaction

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Fig 7. Problem set up of water impact

t=2.7 ms

t=2.7 ms

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t=5.0 ms

t=5.0 ms

13th International LS-DYNA Users Conference

Session: Fluid Structure Interaction

Fig 8. Upper: deformation shape for air and water model

Lower: deformation shape with double value of penalty scale factor

Fig 9. Final deformation shape from SPH model (left) compared to ALE model (right)

Fig 10. Impact velocity from SPH model (B) compared to velocity from ALE model (A)

Summary
We present couples of keyword options available in LS-DYNA for the interactions between SPH
parts also the interactions between SPH part and Solid part: Standard SPH interpolation method
(normal
way);
Node
to
node
penalty
based
contact
through
keyword
*DEFINE_SPH_TO_SPH_COUPLING; Combination of both method through keyword
*SECTION_SPH_INTERACTION; Node to suface contact between SPH part and Solid part;
Coupling
between
SPH
parts
and
solid
parts
through
keyword
*DEFINE_ADAPTIVE_SOLID_TO_SPH; Coupling between SPH particles with ALE elements
through keyword *ALE_COUPLING_NODAL_PENALTY. Different interaction approaches
can be combined together in one model to reach the best results. Some examples are
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Session: Fluid Structure Interaction

13th International LS-DYNA Users Conference

demonstrated to show how to use different approaches with different combination of LS-DYNA
keywords.

References
Jingxiao Xu, Jason Wang, Node to node contacts for SPH applied to multiple fluids with large
density ratio, 9th European LS-DYNA Conference 2013.
L.B. Lucy, A numerical approach to the testing of the fission hypothesis, Astron. J. 82 (12)
(1977) 1013.
L.D. Cloutman, SPH simulations of hypervelocity impacts, Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory, Rep. UCRL-ID-105520, 1991.
R.A. Gingold and J.J. Monaghan, Kernel estimates as a basis for general particle methods in
hydrodynamics, J. Comput. Phys. 46 (1982) 429-453.
L.D. Libersky and A.G. Petschek, Smooth particle hydrodynamics with strength of materials,
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Socorro, NM.
J.J. Monaghan, Simulating free surface flows with SPH, J. Comp. Phys. 110 (1994) 399-406.
Paul W. Cleary, Modelling confined multi-material heat and mass flows using SPH, Applied
Mathematical Modelling, Volume 22, Issue 12, December 1998, Pages 981993.
F. OTT and E. SCHNETTER, A modified SPH approach for fluids with large density
differences, 2003.
X. Y. Hu and N. A. ADAMS, A multi-phase sph method for macroscopic and mesoscopic flows,
Comput. Phys. 213, 2 (2006), 844-861.
B. Solenthaler and R. Pajarola, Density contrast SPH Interfaces, Eurographics/ACM
SIGGRAPH symposium on Computer Animation, 2008.
Matthias Muller, Barbara Solenthaler, Richard Keiser and Markus Gross, Particle-Based Fluidfluid Interaction, Eurographics/ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on Computer Animation (2005),
pp. 237-244. 1, 2, 4, 6.
Markus Ihmsen, Julian Bader, Gizem Akinci and Mathias Teschner, Animation of air bubbles
with SPH, International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Application, 2011.
P. A. Cundall and O. D. L. Strack, A discrete numerical model for granular assemblies (1979),
Geotechnique, 29(1), 47-65.

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